Look at the density of those dots. This gives you a physical image of how concentrated the Jewish Population was. And this is very important because it unlocks the secret9 to something the secret to something. One of the few records we have of the planning to will the jews of europe is on january 20th, 19 39, the head of the ss sat down with representatives of all kinds of german institutions and asserted his authority over the process and got their agreement to participate in it. He also said something that has often been quoted that was deeply misleading. He said europe will be combed there west to east. From west to east. In other words, the jews would be killed first from france and the netherlands and so forth, and the killing process would go across the continent. And yet anyone who has studied the holocaust knows that that is exactly the opposite of the way it happened. The killing went from east to west at least on the northern half of the european i continen. The million and a half victims of the holocaust who were deaded by the end of 1941, so onequarter of the total lived almost entirely in the areas where you see those dots. Occupied poland and the parts of the soviet union that were invaded this 1941. In 1941. The few additional victims of the holocaust in 1941 are mostly german jews who are being deported from the country. In france people were not being killed in the netherlands, they were not being killed and so forth. Now, why is this so . And this is the last part of my first question, why were the jews killed. Why did the killing start here . Why with why was it so intense here . I i do not believe, as has been recently argued, that the reasons or absence of local governments had anything to do with it, socalled statelessness. It is true that in most of these regions there were no independent governments. There was no to no pole toish government polish government. But lithuania and latvia had puppet governments, led by former military leaders. All of these areas had local administrations and local police forces, they were all thickly staffed with local collaborators through which thgermans worked. The reason why the killing starts here, look at the dots. The reason why the killing starts here is because this is where germany intended the expand. This is where the largest population of jews was. This is where the rest of the the germans expected the rest of the population to come lie or to help with the killing to comply or to help with the killing of the jews. And this is where the approximate sumty of the fighting proximity of the fighting. Remember, theyre still invading, theres still war going on here unlike in western europe. And this is where the fighting activated german air now ya about socalled partisans and the jews being guerrilla fighters behind their lines of which there were, in fact, very few in 1941. In other words, the reason why the killing here first is so intense is because german ideological fascination with the region coupled with the density of the jewish pop belation, the unlikeliness of local resistance to the killing of the jews and the presence of military activity. All combined to suggest to german policymakers that the solution as they called it to the longstanding jewish question was to kill the people in their path. And then it was a short step to killing the people behind them. The jews who were already in occupation this other parts of europe. I do not think as has been claimed that expectations on the germans part of either victory or defeat had anything to do with the decision. The momentum was rolling by september9 and be october of 1941, remember those experiments as auschwitz . Why are they testing gas on people at the end of august and the beginning of september . Because theyre looking for another method. And the momentary likelihood of either winning or losing the war could be and was used throughout 1941 as an argument to expand the killing. Hitlers confidence in defeating the soviet union waxed and waned several times in the last half of 1941. Whether he thought he was winning or whether he thought he was losing, the momentum increased to killing the jews who were defined as subversives and threats. And thus, it was that not only did they make the tests at auschwitz in early september, the location of another of the death camps, the construction begins on november 1st. Still a third of the death camps is picked in mid november, its location. On november 18th, designated german minister of these conquered areas tells the german reporters in berlin on deep background that the physical extinction of european jewry is at hand. And the invitation to the conference went out on november 29th. It was supposedded to be held on december 7th, i think no, 9th. And the reason it wasnt held is because the japanese attack on pearl harbor struck the germans as a surprise, they werent alerted in advance. Berlin was thrown into consternation, the meeting was canceled. It therefore didnt occur in early december, it occurred in january. We have absolutely in reason to think that the agenda of the meeting changed in the interval. When that meeting was called in november, he knew what he intended to say and to do, and the preparations had already been made. So why were the jews killed . Because of a longstanding tradition of hatred activated under particular political circumstances, fomented by a regime that was thoroughly capable of whipping up the population to participate in it, then undertook a war into a region where there were hundreds of thousands of the people it had defined as enemies. And it resolved, under the conditions of wartime, to wipe these people out. Why couldnt, didnt anyone stop this . How was it that this process was allowed to unfold . The short answer is that because the jews were internally divided and largely powerless in the taste of the nazi onslaught. In the face of the nazi onslaught. And be every other Relevant Party always had Something Else her important to do. Germans themselves who might have been shocked by what the nazis seemed to be encourageing actually thought in 1933 about resigning. One of the most little known facts about the history of the third reich is that the ambassadors to washington, paris, london and oslo consulted in the spring of 1933 right after hitler was appointed about whether they should all resign. Because they thought this was a potentially criminal government. And in the end, only one of them did, the man who was the ambassador here in washington. The others stayed, and a man who was the ambassador in oslo who later became the second hand in the German Foreign ministry offered this explanation for why. He said one does not abandon ones country because it has a bad government. The leaders of german industry didnt behave much better. There were a number of them who thought that the future looked dark and that this regime would bring trouble, and many of them were deeply opposed to the antisemitic policies that they saw unfolding, and many of them consulted in the course of 1933 about what they could do. Almost all of them came up with rationalizations for saying we should work from within, we should do what we can to make this better. The thisre was a very colorful e for this, we should do our best to see this wildgrown juice becomes wine. And that was their job. Over and over the people and many of the industrialists who were consulted decided that what was being done to the jews was regret be bl; the expulsion more positions as University Teachers started very early, the expulsion from some prominent economic positions also started early. They saw old old they saw all of this. It was regrettable, but the economic revival, the improvement of conditions, the assertion of national prestige, all of this outweighed what they called, quote the inevitable excesses that come with revolution. Unquote. One way or another, german bees bees germans found ways of rationalizing cooperation with the regime. One of my favorite quotes, history never repeats itself; people always do. And i dont need the tell you how many people in the spring of 1933 in prominent positions of german life said i have more to gain by going with the way these things are developing than by resisting them. So this was the pattern that helps to explain why so few germans stood up and resisted. Europeans outside of germany were, had a horror of the repetition of world war i. They believed in the doctrine of noninterference in the internal affairs of other countries. They feared an influx of refugees and also a very topical issue. In britain tier of immigration fear of immigration to palestine and the resulting political robs that would come for the british mandate was very strong. German prop be began da was, had certain appeal in allied countries because the germans kept saying was all we want is selfdetermination. All we want is the right that you have claimed for yourselves before we want to bring other germans back into our country. The austrians, of course, had never been german. But they spoke german. And, thus, this was a kind of idealistic appeal that was made. In the United States, a combination of nativism, antisemitism, a fear of an influx of immigrants not from germany, not from germany. There were only 560,000 german jews. Even the opponents of immigration were not necessarily convinced that this country could not absorb half a million people. The problem was there were 3. 3 million jews in to beland, there were 800,000j well,ews in lithu, and every single one of those governments had publicly expressed the desire to reduce its Jewish Population and had gone to the league of nations anded and asked for help in that respect. The ambassador of poland in Great Britain in 1938 actually tried to blackmail the British Government into accepting 100,000 poll polishjewish immigrants, or, he said, we will be compelled to adopt the policies of the german reich toward its jewish citizens. So this was a world in which resistance to immigration was enflamed by a sense that the influx would be even greater than was predicted. The extent of u. S. Nativism, i think this is where we go to the next one. Everybody will recognize the illustrator. Almost everybody will. This is dr. Seuss. And, of course, in the 1940s on the left what you have is the logic of appeasement. This is actually from 1940. No heart how many countries the germans actually go after, they will leave us alone, because theyll be tired. Or even more shocking, the illustration on the right, the world chewed up the children and spit out their bones, but those were foreign children, and it didnt really matter. Northwestern has a very distinguished journalism school. Its actually named after a man who was the editor of the Chicago Tribune in the late 19th sent aboutly and a vicious opponent of irish immigration to the United States. So it is, you know, the laundering of names that goes on in culture. But this ma dill school of journalism had a class that met in january 1939. Now, these are journalism students. They were asked the assemble a list of the ten most significant historical events of 1938. Okay . This is like the scherr hock holmes story about the dog that didnt bark. Whats not on the list . The burning to have the synagogues, the attack on the jews of germany was front page on the Chicago Tribune. On the mostly white, northwestern was a Methodist University in those days, on the mostly white anglosaxon protestant students, even the journalism student, the attack on the jews of germany had made almost no impression judging from their list. This is the world outside of germany that the german jews were facing. Now, the miracle is, of course, how many people got away. 60 of the german jews escaped in the 1930s, 67 of the austrian ones, a little less than a quarter of the jews of the occupied czech parts of that country. One of the reasons why this pattern of noninterference with the holocaust continues after the war has to do with the next illustration. After the war began in 1931 39, and after the United States came into the war in 1941, this is a nazi propaganda poster. It says behind the enemy powers is the jew. And notice the flags. Its britain, its the american flag, and its the soviet union. The depiction of all of these powers were all tools of the jewish enemy, it was a central theme in nazi propaganda. And it turned out to be an inhibiting theme in the ability of the american and the British Governments to react. Because what they constantly worried about was if we speak out against the persecution of the jews, we look like we are the tools of the jews. If we make the persecution of the jew central to the war effort, we lay into nazi prop we play into nazi propaganda. Now, you and i looking back on this may find that argument strange. I certainly do. But at the time it was extremely powerful. And though the allies could do not very much about the holocaust as it unfolded, about the only thing they could have done was to publicize it more. And to whip up Public Opinion on the subject. And this is the reason why they in large measure did not. One of the most Shocking Facts i discovered in my research for this book is that the United States knew, in fact, about auschwitz about eight months earlier than our official declarations show. We officially acknowledged the existence of auschwitz in the spring of 1944. We were informed of it by the polish underground in early november 1943. We got details about what was happening there, we knew the location, we knew the name. We consciously repressed this information. And the reason are was in relation to this, the desire not to play into nazi propaganda. Now, let me give you one other illustration of the difficulties of inhibiting or interfering with the holocaust. Once more, i have recourse to a map. Now, the map, the map shows you the routes by which, the main routes by which people were deported to death camps in europe. And the concentration of the death camps over there in the upper right is an important fact what i did in the book and id like you to do with me now mentally is to stick your finning per on that map at vienna finger on that map at vienna, in the middle. Draw a line up, so a vertical lewin up from vienna and draw a horizontal line to the right from vienna. What you have done is you have isolated the Northeast Quadrant of the european continent, okay . 90 of the victims of the holocaust died there. Threequarters of the victims of the holocaust came from there. Now, think about what that mean. In the first place, this is a reinforce bement about europe was not comed from west to east and that this is where the visions of [inaudible] the presence of the jews, the presence of the fighting and the absence of sympathy were the causes for the carnage. For most of the war, the only place where the United Statessed had planes that could bomb these sites was Great Britain over there in the upper left. Great a plane could not reach from Great Britain to the auschwitz camp which is almost the westernmost. Auschwitz is almost the westmost. A plane could not go from Great Britain to auschwitz and return on a single tank of gas without crashing. Now, what this means is that until 1944, until we had fought our way up the boot of italy to just northeast of rome and we could fly a plane from there up to auschwitz, it was not within target range. And every single other of those well, almost every single one of those death camps was closed by the time we could do that in 1944. Actually, they all were because majdanek was liberated just as the soviets came within reach. The it was not inhibited by lack of knowledge. We knew i a great deal about what was happening. But it was inhibited by the fact that it was geographically impossible until late in the war. And indeed, host of the murder the murder in the holocaust was as come pressed in time as it was compressed spatially. 90 in the northeast squad rant of the european continent, 75 of the victims. 75 of the victims were killed within 20 months. They were dead by the time the russian army surrendered at stalingrad. 75 of the victims obviously the holocaust were killed while the germans were winning the war. When they stopped winning the war, their ability to kill jews declined greatly for two reasons. They had virtually killed all of the jew up there where the Jewish Population was concentrated, and the remaining jews lived in countries participate in nominally participate in be nominally that were nominally allied. That to cooperate further with the germans would mean that they would have a great deal of explaining to do after the war. That the germans were likely to lose, the allies were likely to win, they were going to have to explain why they had cooperated. And they largely stopped cooperating. The Romanian Government reneged on its promise to deliver the jews of the romanian homeland which is marked out well, most of it which is in that area called romania, and refused to deliver them to the nazis. Though the romanian troops had killed almost 400,000 jews in the areas they had invaded. The bulgarians refused at all apart from a small thurm in greece they had taken over. The french began dragging their feet. More than half of the jews deported from france were deported in 1942. Then the number greatly declined, and the willingness of French Police to help round up jews also declined. All right, these are some of the reasons why nobody else was able to stand in the way. Let me conclude by saying a few things about the difficulties of the jes themselves jews themselves x this is where we move to the next two slides. This is probably the most famous image of the holocaust. This is the little buy in the cloth little boy in the cloth cap during the the suppression of the warsaw ghetto. And be this is part of a document which is name bed after the german commandant of the operation that put down the warsaw uprising. Almost everybody has seen this photograph. It appears in book after book. I dont think ive ever seen anyone say what im about to say to you. The most remarkable thing in that photograph is that there are is a child in it. A child under the age of 10. In fact, there are three or four children under the age of ten in that staff. Now, this is a photograph taken in the spring of 1943. We though when the population of the warsaw ghett